​Brice made it outside touching his forehead to compose himself. He hid on the side of the store's wall where broken glass covered the ground from flood lights. After changing into the khakis, he threw his jeans over the gate where the dogs ripped and chewed them. He left something to scare the owner. Who would have such vivacious dogs? Is it to prevent theft or to show how much he hated the people living here?He made it around the corner. The dogs shut up after he was out of sight. He hated the shaking feeling in his bones, he stopped to take a breath. If the dogs got loose, it would be nothing left of him. Lights flashed from police cruisers. Neighbors crowded their lawns then an unmarked van unloaded a stretcher. Running to join the crowd made of teens from Cody, he pushed through it. Cops lined the porch trading notes. He raised his hands out of habit. "Excuse me, Officer Newberry asked me here."Both of the officer looked at each other then they close their notepads. Officer Newberry nudged the door and reached her hand between them. She tapped Brice's arm and entered back into the house. He followed her. Inside officers with mask covering their faces searched people laying on the floor face down. Pinching his noise, he prevented himself from smelling the odor in the house."Do you got any needles or anything sharp?" An officer asked through a mask with rubber duckies covering his shoes. "If you do, that will make me mad. I don't want your crap injuring me.""Come, Brice," Officer Newberry looked younger with her hair pulled into a ponytail. Her long lashes blocked her bronze eyes. It distracted him a little from the trash and feces smell of the house. The first bedroom was emptied. The second bedroom three plain clothes detective emerged. The young one stopped and held him by the arm.

​"Thugs shot you for your shoes?""No," Brice said. "They wanted money.""Like always the ambulance never come," the clerk said staring up at Brice. "Few of my friends used to come in here to smoke little rocks to mellow out from the pain of living. Now I don't want to take a puff. If I do, it's like another dead kid for it.""Why did you have those crack bottles up there?""Mrs. Z threatened to kill me," he said. "She offered my friends and me free sample of crack and the tools to use with the drug. Then I wanted out. It worsened my friends' minds and bodies. I can't get out.""Who is Z?"The clerk finished up the treatment of the wound and returned behind the glass. Stripping the tape off boxes, he used his pricing gun to stamp prices on vodka liquor bottles inside them. Things got muddle when kids couldn't be safe or feel it. Men were left helpless. Brice limped to the back of the store, grabbing a pair khaki pants folded near the oversize t-shirt. Poisonous crack cocaine disguised itself as an illegally drug. Truth was it destroyed. He couldn't meet Officer Newberry with blood stain clothes. He didn't ask if the clerk would make a police report. The guy had his load of troubles."Where did you learned to treat a wound? In the military? Brice paused. "Thanks." The clerk kept stamping. The phone ranged, he answered it emerging himself into the conversation. He might haven't heard him. This guy had been neither good or bad just a human being who needed help to deal with his pain a better way. Waving him off, he lifted the bottles two at a time out of the box shelving them on the wall.

Brice made it to Dave's Party Store. The fence in business next to the store had Doberman shepherds climbing it, barking with protruding eyes. Their nails sharp enough to tear the skin off him. He panted. He tripped into the party store over his own feet.The fool wasn't on the phone, Brice thought. This would have been the best time for him to be on it. He didn't need for him to notice he was hurt. He went down two aisles before finding the bandages on a lower shelf. The price on them displayed a million dollars to him."Don't dropped blood on my floor," the clerk said in a thick accent. He left from behind the counter and joined Brice in the same aisle. "You need help?" He held the pricing gun like it was his protection."I need these bandages," Brice said approaching him. "I'll pay for them tomorrow."The clerk disappeared from sight but Brice heard him unlocking the door behind the counter. He turned and grabbed a bottle of alcohol, running the alcohol over his wounded leg until it soaked through his jeans. He took a couple of bandages from the box. He calls the cops on petty thief yet sells crack bottles. Returning with plastic gloves and scissors, the clerk knelt down and started cutting along the seam of Brice's jeans."This block is a good place to live," the clerk said. "I never knew drugs could bring so much death. It has brought as much death as I seen in war." Pressing the wound with a bandage with one hand, he pointed at the medical tape with the other. Brice handed to him.

"I've been looking for your ass.""Hefty, are you never going to let this go?"Stomping his feet in the mess on the floor, Hefty motioned his gun for him to come. Then he poured cornmeal over the mess. Brice didn't move."Come eat this," Hefty said firing a bullet. Brice grappled with his leg, checking the wound. Blood emerged. Brice limped near the mess, picking up a handful of it.. He brought it to his mouth. Do something. He told himself, not wanting to die. He threw the mess in Hefty's face then he rolled in the opposite direction of the shots. Hefty fired three more times scratching at his eyes.The heat from the bullets pumped up Brice's heartbeats. Running out the back door, he headed for his car. He yanked the door open to the passenger side for the Glock. He backed out the car on his belly, flipping over to his back. He slammed the door. Hefty stood over him. He fired, his head ached and his vision blurred as Hefty scurried through the dark. He knew he hit him, hoping he was dead. His stomach gurgled, realizing his death brought him peace. Brice stumbled to his feet and trotted through the side streets to meet up with Office Newberry. She would be his alibi.

Brice stepped out the room leaving Nicholson at the window. Brice head home catching the buses and walking the rest of the way. His body chilled from the midnight air, dropping temperature. His neighborhood quieted down from the other night. He made to his front porch when heard the snapping from one of his chairs on his porch."I don't know what you think of me," said the woman creeping toward Brice in the darkness. "Keep Margaret out of helping these kids.""She's doing what she needs to," Brice slid the key in the door, ignoring her words. He needed allies."My sister got crap thrown at her. And I was the only one there for her.""I'll be there for her too.""You just use her up like the DPS by demoralizing and dampen her soul.""I have seen what happens when you left alone to fight in DPS." Brice said. She favored her sister around her eyes. He made too many promises tonight that he needed to keep. Margaret's sister descended the stairs and turned around a couple times. "Check your mailbox. That's where my ex-brother-in-law found a mistress."Brice stood guard on his porch until she reached her car and drove off. Pulling a paper from his mailbox, he read an application form for a prostitution job. It included lines requesting for previous employer names and addresses, if applicable. The company slogan written in bold letters across the top -Rising Enterprise Company Built Five Years Strong. Got to be Jason and his cronies. Brice unlocked his door pushing it open. He clapped, no lights.He folded the paper and tucked in the book he had shoved in his pants. Feeling his way to the living room, his foot bummed into his shattered lamp on the floor. The kitchen light flickered over his milk, hamburger, and Doritos on the floor.Brice's phone rang upstairs. He trampled through the broken glass then upstairs. He switched the light on in his bedroom."Hey," Brice said."Brice Frankel, this is Officer Newberry. I need you at address 94…Brice pulled the phone from his ear. He heard the address as cabinets' doors slammed. Who is tearing the house up? Rob it but don't tear up."Be here tonight, it's easy to find," Newberry said.Brice crept down the stairs. He kept in the darkness as he snuck a peek at who was in the kitchen. He eased himself further into the light ray that fell over the entrance.

"Jason got protection, I need to find individuals who can help in bringing him down. They have to be criminals since I'll destroy them in the end."Nicholson used his one good foot to shuffle closer to him. He took two sniffs. "Angry and courage. One can make you go the distance in getting rid of Jason. The other will cause you to question your morals. You don't have to become dirty as Jason but you have to get a little dirty on yourself to accomplish the goal.""I didn't run to call the police when that happen," said Brice pointing to the neighbors coming to aid the injured bodyguards. "The reign of killing my kids at will is over."Maybe he knows something, Brice thought. He resembled a bad horror flick creation, Jason messed him up for good. Avoiding glancing at him, he concentrated on the McDonald's and White Castle's bags lining his floor and listening to Get It Right's threats."Nachine Bautista," Nicholson said, interrupting the silence in the room."I heard her name since I was in high school." Brice glared at Get It Right realizing they were all the same. If he killed one, another one replaced him or her. He conceived to create a system eliminating the replacements. The plan would be to liberate his community from the need for drug dealers. "She's a drug dealer she has nothing to do with education." That wicked fool won't die.""Then you aware she runs drugs through the teenagers," said Nicholson. "Jason tried to get her out the school by pushing out the gang members. Then he got tired of being poor and worrying about being fired.""He sided with her.""No he made a truce. She run the outside of the school. He runs the inside.""The key is they don't get alone."Brice reached into his pocket, removing a couple of tens. He handed them to Nicholson. He waved them away."Jason hired Tattle Tale to beat me down every move I made against him. The last school audit I requested, left me cripple. He has to be punished or die soon or my fight represents a waste of my time."

"What the-" Floyd asked reaching down to pull off the person who squatted over him."Here something for flunkies," the trash lady thrust her hunting knife in his stomach.Floyd clutch it trying to yank it out of his gut and fell in desperation on the ground. Trash lady turned to Get It Right, displaying her handgun or some automatic pistol. Brice couldn't tell the difference. Nicholson leaning forward, gazing at her face. She fired two shots near each of his earlobes."'Don't mess with my mama, ' Arcadio says," Trash lady replaced her gun and reclaimed her knife. "Do you hear me?" She roared with laughter sprinting from the block. Bullets came from all directions as Get It Right's bodyguards approached firing at her. She dug between the bags and tossed something in their directions. Brice held his ears to stop his head from pounding from the boom noise and pressed his feet against the floor to steady himself. An explosion happened. Body parts flew like crash test dummies.Nicholson stomped his foot then he backed up his chair. He rocked in his chair a few times. "You've been praying.""Yes," Brice said. After all that had happen, he knew he was in a guerrilla war with drug dealers, cops, and civilians. He blocked what happened out his mind, trusting he could win."Look at what's going on and at me." Nicholson slapped his legs. "I made it through by the grace of God. I'm supposed to have been dead so many times."

​"He never goes to sleep," said Nicholson. "He likes to torment you for a while then kill you."Brice cleared a space for him on the floor. "I need to talk about Jason and go.""You risked your life to come up here to discuss him.""I need to know my enemy, to get him out of Cody."Brice and Nicholson's attention observed Get It Right hollering at his crew. He wailed his arms, stomping around in a circled. Demonstrating a kid having a disgusting tantrum, he uttered foul words in his performance. The dancers separated into their homes or into their cars leaving the party. The bodyguards tried to stop them, they drove pass."Where did this can come from?" Get It Right said, bending down to remove his shoes. "Floyd bring me another pair of shoes."Floyd jogged to a gold-colored Mercedes Benz, he got smack in the face with a soaked red paper bag. He stopped to examine how much damage it caused. His face and the top part of his track suit had been slime. Unzipping his jacket, he scoped the area for the fool who was throwing this junk. He retrieved the shoes and planned to pass them to Get It Right when a blurred of black plastic crossed in front of him. The person's foot landed in Get It Right chest, knocking him to the ground.

I am unable to post my writing during the weekend. I'll try to have an episode up on Wednesday 02/17/2016. I have copied files from OneDrive to Zoho.com. OneDrive and Office have caused my rewriting to slow down Please continue to follow the saga and thank you followers. :)

​"A piece of crap," the mechanic said. "Turning the neighbors into his followers whether they want to or not, he controls their movements. I've held out. Those who fight back are terrorized."Inside the house one light ran near the door way. The rest of the house was dark with shadows moving. Brice adjusted his eyes. Four girls sat on the stairs. Brice couldn't make their faces out."He's upstairs." The mechanic took his kids into another room were a pink lightbulb lit the room. He shut the door. Brice took one step at a time up the stairs, gripping the barrister tight. Reaching the top where a warp wooden bedroom door with no knob, he knocked. Bed springs creaked. Then wheels shrilled against the floor planks. The figure in the swivel chair clicked the light on in the room."What happen to you?" Brice asked. Nicholson's head had been shaved two-thirds off with a scar replacing the hair. His face was hallowed and sunken in. He scooted back in the chair with only two wheels of the three working. His other foot twisted sideways and didn't move. He stationed himself by the window.Brice clicked the light off before a quick memorization of the path to the window. He maneuvered through overturn stacks of newspapers. Paper plates scattered the floor, near the bed partial eaten collard greens and hamburger were still on one.

Frelisa Walker

The novel One Death At A Time (work in progress) conveys a hopeful message that Detroit can overcome it's problems.​​This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.